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08 July 2010

Ray Charles Live In Stuttgart (1976)

In 2005 the German radio station SWR 2 (re-?)broadcast a Ray Charles concert that originally was taped on 28 (some sources say: 23) September 1976, at the Stuttgart Liederhalle.

Ray deploys his finest voice acrobatics on Feel So Bad. The synergy with Johnny Coles (on flugelhorn) in Am I Blue is as intense as always. The intro to Love Train is extremely churchy. The performance of Big Legged Woman (written by Johnnie Temple) is the first I know of by Ray Charles (the song is best known in Freddie King's version, but Ray stays much closer to the slow version of Muddy Waters, giving it exactly the dirty blues-treatment it deserves). In the outro Ray adlibs a funny "Danke schön, auf Wiedersehen", extending his documented non-English vocabulary to over 10 words.
Clifford Solomon on alto saxophone. Ernie Vantrease (organ, piano) was leading the band this time.

The complete setlist was:
  1. Then We'll Be Home (Sadies Tune)
  2. Georgia On My Mind
  3. Busted
  4. How Long Has This Been Going On 
  5. Feel So Bad 
  6. Am I Blue
  7. Love Train (with The Raelettes) 
  8. I Can't Stop Loving You
  9. Take Me Home, Country Roads 
  10. Don't Let Her Now 
  11. I Can See Clearly Now 
  12. Crying Time
  13. Big Legged Woman
  14. What'd I Say
  15. [Outro: Danke Schön, Auf Wiedersehen adlib]
A mutilated copy sometimes pops up as a torrent. The guy who taped it from the radio writes, "I missed the first 20 minutes of the broadcast due to a technical problem (not mine - no radio signal)." We're probably missing a couple of instrumentals because of that.
A "full album" audio copy starting with #4 and also including # 5, 6, 8, 9, 10 and 14 can be listened to through Youtube:

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